Every photographer who has ever tray-processed prints in a darkroom knows the magic of watching a picture appear on a piece of photo paper. It doesn’t matter if it’s their first print or their 10,000th print, an image appearing in the developer tray never ceases to amaze.

With digital cameras, the magic of the photo process is gone. Digital photography is so commonplace, antiseptic and automatic that most people take it for granted. Push a button, look at the LCD screen.

The technology involved in turning light into electricity, then into bits of digital information stored on a memory card, and finally into an electronic image on a computer screen is no longer considered magical, if it ever was. Digital pictures are today’s normal, everyday routine.

But the miracle of photography itself has never changed.

The ability of photography to capture the right moment, tell a story, inspire hope, enhance emotion, send a message, influence a belief, change opinion or illustrate what words cannot, is still as strong as it ever was.

This is why smart businesses always use custom photography for their press releases, annual reports, web sites and other marketing collateral. These companies understand the ordinary miracle of photography.